CHAPTER 3: A NEW WAY TO HAPPINESS

"What are you doing here?" Those were the first words that Thai had said towards the respective daughter of Kim's, Jisoo, the woman just suddenly barged inside her wife's office with the only one reason lurking inside her head, where is her wife. "You know what, just leave, please." Lisa ordered, her voice trying to let the woman that know she still had a little piece of respect towards her friend's wife.

"Where is she?" She asked standing at the middle of the office looking so worn out with the happenings in her life right now. "I needed to talk to her."

"Talk? For what?" The Thai psychologist asked as if she was erasing the fact about the problem of her friend and the businesswoman. "C'mon, let's make it clear Jisoo, I'm also your friend and so as Seulgi, but don't make the things harder for her, you are the one who told me before that 'if a relationship becomes hard and it wouldn't be able to get fixed the way it was before then let that person go.' So does this mean she was exempted from it? Seulgi was exempted from it? Oh God Chu."

"You don't understand!" Jisoo shouted, making the younger to be dumbfounded with the sudden outburst. "I love her, I always do, but the people, the eyes of disgust from everyone, have made me sick." A tear had escaped from her eyes as she remembered the time were they revealed about their marriage to the public, a lot of people had thrown hate comments from her to Seulgi, since then she tried to get more distant from being with her wife in front of the eyes of everyone to make herself being comfortable of the toxic culture of the Korean people.

Lisa chuckled and laughed. "I'm not in the place to say something about your relationship but I can't take it, you're so selfish, the only thing you see in front of your eyes is yourself." The Thai took her phone and car keys from her table. She faced her and said. "Look for her. If you can."

--

"So why did you bring me here?" It was already past two in the afternoon when they arrived in front of an old house at a small community in the city of Daegu. The two went inside of the house with the two bags filled with food hanging in their hands. "You know what you're getting more suspicious." The psychologist said as she helped the older woman from preparing their food in the living room. "Is this your place?" Seulgi asked once again as she placed herself on the floor facing the businesswoman.

"This was the place I supposedly grew, but sadly, my parents chose to bring me to Seoul, so this house was left rotting in here since most of us were busy doing our part on our family business." Irene opened one of the cola and handed it to the younger. "This house would look great if this can be taken back to life as what it used to be before, but a lot of things had been piling up with my schedule"

"Yes it would, was this your family's ancestral house?" The businesswoman nodded her head as she proceeded to eat her food when the psychologist's eyes landed on a picture frame sitting at the top of a coffee table. "Wait." Irene looked at the sudden move of the psychologist, the woman walked towards the frame and took it from its place.

"Why?" The woman asked.

"She kinda looked so familiar."

"There's no way you've met her before." Irene answered as she finished her final stick of rice cake, looking at her grandmother's picture, she remembered the time, where her grandfather used to say that she really looked like her older sister. "She's long dead, a few long years ago. I bet before our generation could even exist."

"Your generation, I'm still young." Irene's eyes went wide, making the psychologist laugh.

"Stop talking about my age okay?"

"Okay, granny." The older showed her fist making the younger giggled. "No, but seriously, she really looked like I've seen her before." Seulgi insisted as she fetched her phone from her pocket, looking at the time saying it was already past three in the afternoon. "You told me that you're going to share some story about your grandmother's love interest to a woman."

"Oh yeah, I forgot, she was that person I was talking about." She pointed to a picture of her grandmother. "When she was just 21, she withdraw herself from college, she was taking a pre-law course at that time when she told my great grandparents that she doesn't want to do school anymore, so they let her be and from then on, her parents had already focused their eyes to my grandfather when they didn't even realized that something was off happening to their eldest."

"I think I've heard about that woman before." Seulgi said as she looked at the businesswoman's feature, there were a lot of things she could have observed but the respective woman's face seemed to look like a carbon copy of the older woman in the picture. "And you also look like her." She said as she drank her cola.

"You say so? A lot of people had been telling me that I looked like my grandmother plus her characteristics as a person." Irene took the picture from the table. "But I wasn't able to meet her, she died from a heart attack and also to her age, the psych ward had failed to heal her so when her brother had already built his own family, they took her back from the ward and let her stay here with them until her last breath." Irene looked at the ring on her pointer finger. "Her ashes were breakdown to multiple jewellery and was given to the near family, especially to the ones in position to handle the businesses, so when I turned twenty-four, I've taken mine from my father as a birthday gift and as a sign that I was the new president and owner in one of the companies under our name, if ever, the marriage between I and Junmyeon happen in the future, together with my wedding ring, I will also be getting my mother's engagement ring to be officially proclaimed as the new chairwoman of the empire."

"I guess I'm too poor to be friends with you." And with that, the two fell into the pit of laughter. "I'm just no ordinary person."

"You're not, , Kang's and Kim's were in terms with the mental institution right? Your grandfather was the co-founder of Metro Seoul Psych Facility, and your father and brother also hold a huge name in the medical industry so stop saying that, even if you're a normal person, I would rather befriend with someone who's far from me, they were friendly than the ones inside the industry. Look at Wendy, up until now she was still a civilian woman lost inside the family of Son, she decided not to hold any position in there company so she had to work for all of her expenses and sometimes she even stays with me."

"That woman, she's so transparent and simple." Seulgi said as she remembered her friend was always making fun of her. "So your family considered your grandma as a special person to your family and businesses?" The woman nodded her head and took the plastic bowl sitting in front of the psychologist.

"Because they expected her to fall in love with someone in a male form but instead she fell in love with the person living inside her head. I remembered the one time when my grandfather had used to review some video files about her sister, thinking whether it was just an exorcism or something was just stopping her sister from doing normal things." Irene stood up and helped the psychologist too. She then asked. "Do you want to see her room? There were a lot of photos of her who's still left in there, do you want to look for it?" Seulgi nodded and let the older woman guide her inside the house. The psychologist could really say that the family of Bae from the start were already leaving an extravagant life, it was just simple house but the decorations inside it was a pure priceless piece and was also now left with the house rotting, the paintings from the walls, the porcelain figurines and a shelves of untouched expensive wines were seen as they passed by to the back portion of the house. Irene opened the door revealing a neat bed and a cabinet full of some fiction and law books.

"I bet your grandmother used to read a lot." That was the first thing that the psychologist could say after she stood in front of the cabinet, from the famous novel authors and to some manuscript arranged in alphabetical order, it was all there. "She even read a book copy of Carmilla that was one of the famous pieces of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu." Irene hummed in response as she sat in one of the chairs inside the room.

"My father and I went here a few days ago, we came by to get some stuff from my grandmother to keep it once again under our family's house attic in Madrid." The businesswoman said casually as she looked at the pictures in there. "Sometimes I wish I could have just lived like my grandmother." Seulgi turned around as she let her back relax at the wooden cabinet.

"Why? Do you want to be like her? I mean you're already living the best of your life as your family was already one of the known aristocrats of Asia, isn't that enough for you to be happy?" The psychologist asked.

"Of course, I can be happy with my luxurious life, but I'm already entering the pace where I should start to make my own family, the pace where I needed to choose whether to keep on focusing on my part as a member of my family's business or to be a good wife and mother to my own family, I'm not getting any younger yet I didn't even try to prove it to myself if I ever could be a great lover to someone how much more being a wife and a mother right?" The older girl played with her fingers. "My grandmother wasn't able to show her love to that person but her words will always be the reason why I wanted to be myself, I mean love has no boundaries, it has no gender, well, I don't care whether I end up with someone who only work for a simple living or to a woman who only do painting as long as I love that person that would be it and that was it."

The psychologist fell into silence as she listened to the woman's words, reflecting on the time where she would do something to make her woman happy without just even thinking about herself. The two ended up sharing each other's life story as they connected it to Joohyun, the scenarios of their lives were they think it once felt right but ended up in wrong place, Seulgi found out a lot of things from doing the right thing for love and to balance it to her own life to only realized that she had done too many things that she should have enjoy it to others, the time were everything felt so right yet it was already wrong without realizing it sooner whilst the older woman who also admitted that her life hasn't completely started, she never been able to experience a lot of things as she was enclosed by her own family's guide and decision. As the good talk went deeper and deeper, the two weren't able to notice about the sun who was already setting down when they finally decided to go back home.

--

It's already pitch dark when they hit the traffic, the younger woman who was sitting on the shotgun seat was found playing on her own ring while the businesswoman was busy driving her car back to Seoul. There's nothing could be more happier if a someone would listen to your complains and it felt so good when they listened and threw some advice after it, this days, Irene couldn't find on how to compose herself back into a usual state as the marriage had kept on suffocating her from doing things she wanted, the only thing she knew was her life was getting hard and it even get harder as the pressure of the both families were on her now. "Let's just say you can keep the memory but not the person." Irene blurted out of nowhere as she accelerated faster from the other cars, meanwhile the psychologist and her mental breakdown had slowly kept on eating her she wore her wedding ring back to her finger as she leaned her head to the window losing back to her thoughts as she thought about the thing and asking where did it go wrong.

"I may not be able to lighten up your mood but of course, I'm sure you'll be able to be happy again." Irene said as she stopped in front of the traffic light, she turned around to see the psychologist looking back at her, and as their eyes met, the businesswoman felt weird about being concerned about someone's feelings since she never had been too attached to someone with their own problems. "But maybe fixing yourself from your past and starting to prepare for your future ahead of you now will be much better, she might probably think twice about why she decided to leave you for nothing."

The older continued to drive without getting any response from the younger when her phone suddenly rang, Irene then remembered, she had an appointment tonight with Kim's and she might probably end up meeting the psychologist's wife right now. "Where are you?" The voice from the other line echoed inside the car.

"I'm driving, I'm on my way back to Seoul." She answered as she took a glance from her side just to see the psychologist silently listening to her conversation with her brother-in-law, Junmyeon. "Why did you call? I need to drop this now."

"No, listen first. Jisoo went out to look for her wife." Her head automatically turned around to look for the psychologist's reaction, Seulgi on the other hand was shook and fell into the cloud of emotion as she heard her wife's name. "She was nowhere to be found right now, even to their own house here in Seoul, she even asked her brother and also told someone to look at their vacation house in Busan but there is no traces of her in there, even your friend Wendy was asked about her and also Seulgi's co-league on her clinic, Jisoo confronted them for the whole day but she never got any information about her whereabouts." Irene looked at the psychologist with a knowing look whether to tell her brother-in-law that she was with her the whole day or not, the woman shook her head and mouthed her not.

"Then why are you calling me now? Do you expect me to know her whereabouts? I'm not a detective man." The businesswoman answered.

"No." The man cleared his throat. "I want you to come here tonight, it seemed like Jisoo was really eager to consider her marriage dismissal with her wife, her lawyer is also her and was considering to discuss some things about their marriage."

After the man said that, the atmosphere of the car fell into zero, the businesswoman pulled up her car on the sidewalk and answered. "Why do I even need to go there?" She asked.

"Well, you were the closest person I could call to let you know that our marriage is about to get insured."

--

As she stepped inside her clinic, the psychologist had already felt the heaviness inside her, she didn't know how to react or if she even needed to react, it already came out from her brother's mouth, they stood no chance for their marriage, and now, what was the use of holding on? If she were the only person who is willing to fight for a second try. Her head mentally asked her inner self. "Bruh, where did you go?" Lisa went out of her office with her sleeves rolled up, her eyes screamed with worry as she looked at her friend who was in her devastated state. Before the woman could even answer, she already fell to her knees and started to cry, her cry was full of agony and hatred, thinking how can be this time be so cruel to her and for her lover, how can she just lived a life thinking I married the best woman I've ever knew in my life to having the question if I ever met the best person inside my life, the person she can spend a wonderful time without questioning things she can't do, without having the superstitions that she had another woman. Seulgi was all messed up and she could not take it all at once, she just wanted to be happy but destiny did not want to do it too.

"If you're just going to cry there you'll be a loser." A woman appeared from the front the front door as the Thai helped the psychologist from crying too much, the businesswoman walked closer to the psychologist holding both of her wrist to make her stood up, Lisa couldn't say anything but to look at the older woman who had her eyes looking straight to the soul of the psychologist. "If she ever loved you she would never dare to do that, now ask yourself, did she ever love you? Why can she easily withdraw her vows towards you if she ever does?" Irene grabbed the woman's face with her right hand making sure that her eyes were looking back to her. "And now you were just going to cry here because of that? If it was you the problem from the very start you would already lose all of your interest towards her but no, it was not you it was her." She slammed her hand towards her chest and pointed her finger towards her head.

"You don't deserve to be so devastated right now you only have yourself like what I said earlier, if you wanted to face her, go there and let her eat the dust from making you be in that state."